During his reality TV days when he hosted The Apprentice, Donald Trump loved using the phrase: You are fired. It was his catchphrase, synonymous with other Trumpisms: gilded gold designs that look like they belong in the Ottoman Empire, membership of the WWE Hall of Fame, stream-of-consciousness speeches that hint at logorrhoea, taking credit for ceasefires, describing all objects as beautiful, and in general being unhinged Americana on steroids and Diet Coke. However, in his second term as President – after coming back from political exile and dodging a bullet – Trump is quite reluctant to use his catchphrase.In his first term, according to an analysis by the Brookings Institution of Trump’s A-team, when he was still surrounded by old-school Republicans, Trump fired 60 candidates and had a turnover rate of 92%, with only five people remaining in their original posts by the time his tenure at the White House was done.To ensure that there isn’t a repeat this time around, Trump has assembled acolytes who are the living embodiment of Peter’s Principle, whose fealty is to Trump and only Trump, and who all sound like they are auditioning for a parody Hollywood movie, as evidenced by this mashed-up White House video with the Mortal Kombat leitmotif and some of popular culture’s most memorable characters, showing that even the most incomplete, irascible, and irredeemable regimes are capable of fine propaganda.Read: Why Trump’s Washington is St Petersburg The Trump 2.0 Dream Team includes a Director of National Intelligence (DNI) who is so out of the intelligence picture that her aides joke that DNI stands for Do Not Invite; a head of the FBI who is more in the news for partying than doing his job; an education secretary who thinks AI is ‘steak sauce’; a Secretary of War who hit a man with an axe on live TV; and a Secretary of Health who believes in anti-vaccine conspiracy theories. It’s like a cabinet of Sarah Palins, except they all make Sarah Palin look like a member of the Mensa Society. It brings to mind an epic Yes Minister line: “The industry minister is the idlest man in town, the education minister is illiterate, and the employment minister is unemployable.”There are many, many more examples but the space-time constraints dictate we move to the MVP in question: Kristi Noem.As a youngster, Noem famously won the award of South Dakota Snow Queen, foreshadowing the nickname that would be bestowed upon her in recent times: ICE Barbie. ICE, for the uninitiated, is the US’ Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which has been waging war with suburban moms while pretending to pick up illegal immigrants.Once talked about as Trump’s running mate, she was out of contention after it emerged that she had shot and killed her dog, which was too much even for Team Trump.
During her tenure as Governor of South Dakota, she ticked every MAGA checkbox: being so vehemently anti-abortion that she even opposes stem-cell research; denying the scientific consensus on climate change; opposing subsidised childcare; threatening a state employee for denying her daughter a real-estate agent’s licence; getting banned from Native American tribal lands for claiming they were hand-in-glove with Mexican cartels; running an anti-drug campaign titled “Meth. We are on it”; and famously bragging that her two-year-old granddaughter had several guns.All of which makes her perfect to be the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, which is responsible for all internal threats in America.Noem immediately burnished her credentials by having her handbag stolen – with $3000 in cash and her government access cards – from a DC restaurant.But what did Noem do to get Trump to become the second person from Trump’s A-team to be fired, the first being former National Security Advisor (NSA) Mike Walz, who added an Atlantic journalist to a Signal war chat to discuss bombings?She wasn’t fired when ICE agents shot dead two Americans in Minnesota.She wasn’t even fired when she called one of those shot dead, a Veterans Affairs nurse, a ‘domestic terrorist’ or lied about him using a gun.She wasn’t fired for calling the FBI ‘corrupt’.She escaped the rope when reports showed that ICE was releasing untrained agents on the streets due to an AI goof-up.She escaped the axe when ICE arrested South Korean citizens working in a Hyundai plant.She didn’t get laid off for buying luxury jets with barely any seating to deport illegal immigrants.She even survived waving a Rolex at an El Salvador prison, an alleged affair with an aide, and not releasing FEMA funds, much to the chagrin of even Republicans.It was all good. Until it wasn’t.Franz Kafka wrote in the Zürau Aphorisms: “There are two cardinal sins from which all others spring: impatience and laziness. Because of impatience we were driven out of Paradise, because of laziness we cannot return.” In Trumpian paradise, there are also two original sins: blaming Trump for something and being caught on camera blaming Trump for something.
Gil Kerlikowske, a former commissioner of Customs and Border Protection, told the NYT: “The loyalty is absolutely the key. It’s a good rule of thumb to never throw your boss under the bus and with him in particular I think it’s the cardinal sin and she certainly violated that.”Noem’s cardinal sins occurred during a Senate hearing.When asked if Trump approved of the $200 million-plus advertising spots that had been given to her political consultants, Noem answered in the affirmative.
A report in the NYT states that when Trump was shown the clips of her answers, Trump got angry, which is quite something given he has a lot on his mind including a literal war.So, what now for Kristi Noem?Trump has announced that she will be Special Envoy for the Shield of the Americas – which sounds as made-up as the FIFA Peace Prize – and makes one wonder if someone came up with it while watching a Marvel Cinematic Universe rerun.One half expects the job description to include assembling the Avengers.Now it’s hard not to feel a little sympathetic for Noem. Being a woman in MAGA is as hard as being an Indian in MAGA, perhaps even more so given one has to not only debate oneself by celebrating constant misogyny but also contour one’s looks for a particular aesthetic. Noem did almost everything that Trump asked her to do and was still cast out.
Earlier in December 2025, protesters had interrupted Noem’s hearing in Congress by shouting a line from the cult classic The Exorcist at her: “Stop ICE. The power of Christ compels you.” It wasn’t Christ that finally exorcised her from Trumpland. Just disagreeing with Trump.
